Wednesday morning at 9am...

finds me here, in the New Lanark Search Room, where I volunteer for the morning. A group of volunteers is cataloguing the Trust's archive of photographs, documents and artifacts .

The room is on the top floor of Mill Three, which houses the Trust's offices, the other floors being mostly taken up with parts of the Visitor Centre. Mill Three is one of the earliest examples of a fire-proof structure - the original mill burnt down in 1819 and Robert Owen rebuilt it with the minimum of wood - mostly cast iron and sandstone. you can see the cast iron supporting columns and ceiling beams. The floor is stone, but we now have the luxury of carpet tiles!

The table and chairs have an interesting history. They were hewn from a single tree and once belonged to the Scottish actor Andrew Keir. He donated the set to New Lanark Conservation Trust in the mid 1970s, and for many years it was sited in the Director's office and used for meetings. It is not actually very comfortable, meaning meetings were kept short!

The Search Room is due to open to the public next March, but I doubt if we will have half of everything calaogued by then. I will probably be here most Wednesday mornings till I am too old to climb the six flights of stairs!!!